A Plumber For All Seasons (out now!) - Works in Progress

Thanks for the feedback! I'll see what I can do about the window lighting.

Originally posted by Roberto zampari

I'm just wondering how many GFX slots you used for this.

Four of them, with some tiles left over. There wouldn't be enough room for a proper layer 2 background, so I'm glad layer 3 exists.

Originally posted by Chillahbyte

The wooden platform that Mario's standing on, however, is a little weird. The palettes are nice but the wooden post the platform sits on is kind of weird. There's a shadow on each 16x16 tile of the post, unless I'm wrong and that was intentional.

Well sure, it's just a placeholder.

I've yet to make a proper ghost house foreground.

Originally posted by Chillahbyte

So, your hacking and ASM skill is great, too. I'm seeing a lot of really cool mechanics that I really feel that I absolutely suck at and need help with. First of all, I don't know any ASM. At all. Secondly, my levels feel... bland and short. Or it's just me hating myself

You've been hacking for a couple of months it looks like? I have been for about nine years, and I only really got good at it around 2010ish. The only way to get better at hacking is to make hacks. Your first attempts will be bad, and so will everyone else's - there's no way around it. You've realized you need to improve, which is great, and you have lots of time to do so. Don't sweat it.

Originally posted by WhiteYoshiEgg

Thanks for the feedback! I'll see what I can do about the window lighting.

Originally posted by Roberto zampari

I'm just wondering how many GFX slots you used for this.

Four of them, with some tiles left over. There wouldn't be enough room for a proper layer 2 background, so I'm glad layer 3 exists.

Originally posted by Chillahbyte

The wooden platform that Mario's standing on, however, is a little weird. The palettes are nice but the wooden post the platform sits on is kind of weird. There's a shadow on each 16x16 tile of the post, unless I'm wrong and that was intentional.

Well sure, it's just a placeholder.

I've yet to make a proper ghost house foreground.

Originally posted by Chillahbyte

So, your hacking and ASM skill is great, too. I'm seeing a lot of really cool mechanics that I really feel that I absolutely suck at and need help with. First of all, I don't know any ASM. At all. Secondly, my levels feel... bland and short. Or it's just me hating myself

You've been hacking for a couple of months it looks like? I have been for about nine years, and I only really got good at it around 2010ish. The only way to get better at hacking is to make hacks. Your first attempts will be bad, and so will everyone else's - there's no way around it. You've realized you need to improve, which is great
, and you have lots of time to do so. Don't sweat it.

Thanks, WYE. Yeah, I started actually hacking in early March of 2016. That's really not so long at all. And yes, my first hack is looking pretty bad... Well, it doesn't look bad but it is bad. Question: when you made your first hack, did your file get corrupt 5 times in a row without a backup or anything? That did to me. I finally make backups now.

Let's gently push this to the front page again.

I'm trying to get back to making steady progress on this, but my vacation (aka paid leave or whatever you call it) is essentially over and I spent most of it soing other stuff.

I really hope to get this finished in the near future though!

Here's a post I made in a shit thread just to confuse people:

Originally posted by WhiteYoshiEgg

Okay, this has been on an unintentional hiatus for way too long. (Lesson learned except not really: make hacking part of your schedule or else Parkinson's law will get the better of you.

)

There's still at least something to show, though!

As hinted at in that one help thread I made, I redrew the Big Boo graphics. I'd planned to recode the graphics routine from scratch so I could use the tilemap I wanted, but SMW's graphics routine are just what the hell, so I ended up just changing the position of some tiles instead. Good enough, I'd say! (And if the expression looks silly, that's not necessarily a bad thing. Or unintentional.)

Also, apparently everything I draw has black bars for eyes. $#tb{^^}$

Professional staff-member-two-month bump. Nice job.
OT: That Big Boo is adorable. Are you going to use the gas bubbles? If so, they'll look really weird.

Anyway, everything you draw is amazing, and I'd like to tell you: please finish this hack. I'm REALLY excited. I was really excited when I saw it on the top of the WIP section. Nice job!

Thanks!

I will finish this hack, come what may - the only thing that's uncertain is when.

I honestly can't wait for it, then! I have a few questions, though, for you. Where do you get so much palette space and pixel space? What I meant by that is that you're able to fit in so much detail in to such a small amount of space. Anyway, I'm really excited for a demo or something, maybe next C3. Good luck with your hack!

How are you creating that special lighting effect like in the forest? It really makes the level stand out.

I definitely like the originality behind this hack. But you said that you'd play the same levels but in different seasons, I mean I know there's gonna be different gimmicks to each season, but wouldn't that a get a bit repetitive?

BANANA SLAMMA.

Thanks for the replies, everyone!

Originally posted by Final Theory

How are you creating that special lighting effect like in the forest? It really makes the level stand out.

The light beams are on layer 3 with a white-to-black HDMA gradient applied to that single color, and to make that a white-to-transparent gradient I enabled color addition.

Originally posted by Chillah

I honestly can't wait for it, then! I have a few questions, though, for you. Where do you get so much palette space and pixel space? What I meant by that is that you're able to fit in so much detail in to such a small amount of space.

The secret is just effort, basically: I spend a lot of time trying to get the backgrounds down to 16-ish colors and 2-3 GFX files, and sometimes that's a real pain to get right (I sometimes have to resort to outsourcing things to layer 3). The foreground gets just about all of the leftover space, so everything's pretty much full to the brim.

Originally posted by Pixel-Gon Gamer

But you said that you'd play the same levels but in different seasons, I mean I know there's gonna be different gimmicks to each season, but wouldn't that a get a bit repetitive?

The levels themselves are different in each season, it's just the theme and the location on the map that stays the same.

Here's another something that's long overdue: a ghost house background. (This was one of those annyoing ones to make - it's not perfect, but I don't want to spend any more time on it.) The lighting effect (not the chandelier itself) is, once again, on layer 3.

Oh okay. But I like this gimmick, this hack has. Not a surprise, because, you've always think of good gimmicks.

P.S. I think your best work is ASM.

BANANA SLAMMA.

This looks AWESOME. I can't wait to see the finished foreground. Keep up the fantastic work!

I'm really loving the graphics, but I'm worried there's a bit of a dissonance between styles here. Your backgrounds are incredibly detailed and use very muted colours, but the sprites I've seen so far are very goofy and fun, and if you're not changing Mario he represents a sort of middle-man between cartoony and realistic. It hasn't looked bad so far, but I can't imagine those cute little boo sprites looking too good in that ghost house. Don't get me wrong, I think all the graphics look incredible so far, but I think that the whole "1 person doing everything" ethos will be lost if it looks like different people handled different graphics.

i also watched the video you made for you level 2, and on the overworld there's an icon indicating what season you're in. Are the seasons something you'll be able to change on the fly? Like with a simple button press or walking to a different part of the map? Or is it a very linear play them one after another. It could be fun to get to choose which seasons you play each level in as you go.

I love the idea. It'll definitely be a blast trying to make the same levels just as fun 4 times. Excited to see what you come up with~

umm... can i help you!?

Originally posted by Hobz

I'm really loving the graphics, but I'm worried there's a bit of a dissonance between styles here. Your backgrounds are incredibly detailed and use very muted colours, but the sprites I've seen so far are very goofy and fun, and if you're not changing Mario he represents a sort of middle-man between cartoony and realistic. It hasn't looked bad so far, but I can't imagine those cute little boo sprites looking too good in that ghost house. Don't get me wrong, I think all the graphics look incredible so far, but I think that the whole "1 person doing everything" ethos will be lost if it looks like different people handled different graphics.

Definitely a valid concern, and one I've had myself as well. I think it's alright to have realistic backgrounds and cartoony sprites, though (Scott McCloud made a similar point in Making Comics, though it's possible I'm oversimplifying that). It's better than the opposite either way. The background is something you can get immersed in and the realism helps that, while the sprites are something you'll be identifying or interacting with and thus should be easy to parse visually.

That's my view, anyway. Besides, my drawing style isn't exactly something I can control, and bringing more people aboard to to graphics work wouldn't be ideal either. I think I'll stick with how I currently do things and see where that gets me - worst case scenario it'll look like a collab, but hey, that's what SMWCP2 is and that doesn't look half bad either.

Originally posted by Hobz

i also watched the video you made for you level 2, and on the overworld there's an icon indicating what season you're in. Are the seasons something you'll be able to change on the fly? Like with a simple button press or walking to a different part of the map? Or is it a very linear play them one after another. It could be fun to get to choose which seasons you play each level in as you go.

Once you unlock a season, you can go back to it any time.

Pressing Start on the map will bring up a teleport menu of sorts. (I'm still surprised that works as well as it does.)

I should probably stop showing off every single thing I make and keep at least *some* parts a secret... but hey, ghost house tileset!

It looks a lot like SMW's and doesn't add anything particularly new, but I don't think I can do any better, and I'm satisfied I got something of substance done this weekend.

Looks really nice. I especially love the grey wood texture. Great job

Clever use of layer 3 there by the way, it's a nice detail

Makes the re-drawn style of GFX that everyone used to use look not re-drawn at all. This is some quality work man.

Loving the slopes. It'll allow for some less blocky looking ghost houses. Nice work. ^.^

Originally posted by 1UPdudes

Makes the re-drawn style of GFX that everyone used to use look not re-drawn at all. This is some quality work man.

Loving the slopes. It'll allow for some less blocky looking ghost houses. Nice work. ^.^

Man, that lighting effect on the chandelier looks really smooth. I had to look really close to see the dithering. Are the flames on the chandelier animated? I also dig the tilted platforms going on. Something about them just seems bizarre, in a good way.	Tower of Disarray 5/?? levels done -HAHA Oh jeez-
An 'A' press is an 'A' press Hella neat layout by Erik557

I'm a big fan of the tilted platforms too. Especially the fact that they're on tilted supports.

Kinda in hibernation for a while. I hope to be back in full swing soon.

Now add mode 7 so they can actually rotate :3

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... what even am I doing with my life?